


I have grown used to having you by my side (maybe it's time we walked away)

by olivemartini



Series: All The Lovely Ones Have Scars [28]
Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Angst, Canon, Dancing, F/M, Hurt Pepper, Iron Man 1, Pre-Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-10
Updated: 2018-08-10
Packaged: 2019-06-25 10:03:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 504
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15638493
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/olivemartini/pseuds/olivemartini
Summary: Pepper's POV during the dance scene in Iron Man 1





	I have grown used to having you by my side (maybe it's time we walked away)

**Author's Note:**

> This one's super short, sorry guys

Pepper keeps playing it over in her head.

How he came to her before anyone else, his hands on her waist and the touch of his skin seeming to burn on the open skin of her back, him whispering in her ear and the stares.  Her, out on that balcony, fumbling through excuses and him just telling her that  _it was fine, it was great, she was great_ and Pepper had looked at him, really looked at him for the first time since he came back from Afghanistan, and it was the first moment where she seemed to accept that this person standing in front of her was solid and real and not going to melt away before her eyes, so she did what she had been wanting to do since the first week she had been working for him and closed her eyes, leaned in, waited for him to meet her halfway- only he never did.  She had just stood there, like an idiot, and even though she knew it was more about him being scared of feelings he cannot control it still stung, but even when she watched him walk away, Pepper had been under the impression that he was going to come back.  Doesn't he always come back to her, over everyone else?

But she was wrong.

This time, she just stood out on that balcony shivering in the cold for a full twenty minutes, the wind cutting through the too thin fabric of this ridiculous dress that she had bought.  Pepper had thought it looked pretty but now she recognizes it for what it was, what everyone must have seen out there, a girl who was trying too hard to impress someone that she could never really be with.  And even then, she still thought that he was going to come back, right up until the moment that the reporter came onto the balcony and told her that Tony had left.  He looked sick, she said.  Like something had gone wrong.  And even though Pepper smiled and said thank you, the only thing she could think was  _me, I'm the thing that went wrong and he didn't even have the decency to give me a drink before he breaks the news._

Though it didn't matter.  She heard the message loud and clear.

 _Don't cry._ She can't get the zipper of the dress to go down and she rips it instead, not caring if it's ruined just wanting every memory of the night gone.  Pepper had kept herself calm the whole ride home but there were limits to what a person can take.   _Don't you dare cry over this._

She had been crying for ages.  Nonstop, even when people told her that it was past the point of believing that he would come home, even when they said that she had to move on, but Pepper never wavered.  She believed that he would come home, because she had faith.  Faith in Tony Stark.

It seems that it was misplaced after all.

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> come find me on Instagram @olive.writes.fanfic


End file.
